by Debra Dunbar
He was a two-thousand-year-old being, ancient compared to me. His words might be rather angelic in nature, but I still took comfort that he’d seen horrible things turn right over time. I was still on human-time, though. I didn’t want to wait for the pendulum to swing, and it terrified me to think of what an angry volcano goddess could do to the islands and their residents before the tide shifted.
I leaned against Irix. “Let’s go. The sooner this is over, the sooner we can go back to sex and sprawling on the beach.” Wishful thinking on my part, but I had to stay positive.
He grinned, cupping my face in his hands as he kissed me. “Deal.”
We took the jeep to Hayworth’s place, me a nervous wreck of worry the whole way. Would he recognize us through the sexual haze of last night? What would Irix need to do to make him cooperate? I didn’t want to witness Irix when he was going full-out demon, but it might be necessary. A whole lot more than Hayworth’s sanity was riding on this. The farmer wasn’t in the house, but all his stuff was still there. After a short drive around the pineapple grove, we found him spraying some young trees on the east side of the farm.
The farmer turned to us, eyes narrowing when he saw me.
“Private property. If you want a tour, talk to your hotel people. If you want to buy a pineapple, go to the grocery store.”
Nice, friendly sort of guy. Aloha to you too, buddy.
Irix waved for me to go first. I took a step closer to the man, thinking to try the gentle, less violent approach first. “I’m a botany senior working on my thesis, and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about your farm?”
I could see the scowl from his profile. “I’m busy working. I don’t have time for questions right now.”
There was a worried note in his voice, and I noticed what he was spraying. Putting a hand on the tree next to me, I felt it – thick blackness, like tar, creeping up through the bark.
“There aren’t a lot of pineapple farms left on the islands, and I hear that even the cane company is probably pulling out in a few years. Must be hard to make a profit.”
He stopped spraying and turned to me, blinking in surprise before his face settled into a scowl. “I’m not talking to you. Do I gotta take a restraining order out, or something? Get off my property.”
Time to pull out the big guns. Not those guns though. I’d traumatized the guy enough last night with my pheromones, no need to start that up again by flashing him.
“Got a bad case of anthracnose in those trees. Hope it doesn’t mess up your young fruit.”
Dennis Hayworth started, eyes shrewd. “Guess you really are a botanist. Yeah, it’s been plaguing my orchard for years. I thought I finally had it under control, but it’s starting to come back in a few of the trees.”
I picked up one of the little bottles of concentrate next to his truck. “Thiophanate-methyl. You’re using the right stuff. If it keeps coming back, you may need to destroy fruit, do a heavy prune, then spray for several months.”
The man relaxed slightly. “I tried that last year. Sacrificed three quarters of my harvest to try and beat this thing. Still came back.”
I winced. The only other solution was to clear out his entire orchard, treat the soil and leave it fallow for a few years, then replant. At that point, he’d probably be better off selling it to developers.
“Is your university working on anything new?” He climbed down from the truck bed, his voice hopeful. “I’d be happy to do a field trial on anything you’ve got in the works. I’m desperate.”
Desperate enough to attempt divine intervention. I honestly didn’t blame the guy.
“Maybe.” I waved my hand at the other trees, still healthy and full of fruit. “You must have done something right, though. Last year the whole orchard was three trees from a slash-and-burn remedy, and now you only have the fungus in a handful of trees. What brought the other ones around so quickly?”
He stiffened, his eyes narrowing. “Are you a reporter? Someone from the Ag Department? I haven’t done nothing wrong. No illegal chemicals, nothing. Now get on out of here before I call the cops.”
And here was where I played hardball. “I saw you. I saw you at the beach fire outside the resort, and I saw you last night at the hibachi restaurant. You were a desperate man, less than a month away from losing your farm. What made you think a volcano goddess could help?”
He’d blanched at the first part of my speech, only to regain his composure by my last sentence. “I’m a nice guy. I tried to put out a beach fire some kids started and did what I could at the building fire last night. I don’t know what you think that has to do with my farm or volcanoes, but you’re wrong.”
I stepped closer. “You helped last night by throwing pineapples into the fire. That’s an odd sort of intervention. Miraculously the fire vanished. Come on, Dennis. You bought a ritual, or found one somewhere, or somebody helped you. You asked a goddess for help, and she cured your grove. Unfortunately, she’s also unleashed some nasty fire servants on the island.”
And she wants to kill me. I kept that part to myself, since I didn’t think Dennis Hayworth gave a damn about my life-or-death situation.
“Yeah, well this goddess did a lousy job since I’m still out here spraying. You’re crazy, and I want you to leave.”
Okay. I’d done the best I could. Time for Irix to step in.
Power filled the air, making everything seem darker. My legs felt twenty pounds heavier. Irix crackled, his eyes a deep glowing gold.
“You called on the wrong divine being,” Irix proclaimed, his voice practically vibrating the air. “Pele? A volcano goddess? What was she supposed to do against a virulent fungal infestation?”
Hayworth caught his breath and stepped backward until he was pressed against the side of his truck. “I didn’t mean to bring out a volcano goddess. I did a fertility ritual but couldn’t pronounce the names, so I substituted. Pele is all over the place here. She’s the local bigwig, so I called on her. Besides, her name is easy to pronounce.”
Idiot. How this guy managed to pull off the ritual at all was beyond my comprehension.
“We’d like a copy of the ritual as well as the name of the person you got it from.”
“I got it out of some book.” Hayworth jerked his head side to side. I moved opposite Irix to flank him in case he bolted. “It’s just a silly legend. I felt stupid doing that ritual but figured it wouldn’t hurt. Things got better, but now I’ve got three trees dying, so, clearly, this Pele is a hack.”
I caught my breath, looking around defensively for a retaliatory wall of fire.
“If you didn’t believe it, if it’s all just a legend, then why were you throwing pineapples at the fire last night?”
The farmer opened and shut his mouth like one of those plastic talking fish. “Pineapples have a lot of water in them, so I thought they would help. It’s the only thing I had in my car.”
Liar. Even I could tell he was lying, and I had no extra special abilities in that area. “Pineapples? Seriously?” I rolled my eyes.
Irix wasn’t as amused as I was. He approached the farmer then shot out a hand to grab the man’s arm. In one swift movement, he’d twisted him around, angling the man’s arm upward and pinning him against the edge of the car.
“I’m calling the cops!” the man yelled.
“It’s difficult to call the police when you lack fingers,” Irix mentioned casually. “In fact, it’s difficult to do a lot of things when you lack fingers. I suggest you tell us right now what happened.”
“It was in a book.” Hayworth gasped, arching his back to relieve the pressure on his shoulder. “I bought a book off the internet.”
Irix pressed him harder against the truck. “What happened?”
The farmer grunted. “I did the ritual on the beach. Used pineapples as the offering. But then the fire went crazy and spread across the beach and into the trees. I tried to put it out but couldn’t.”
“That’s when your pin
eapple trees were cured?” I asked.
He nodded, swallowing painfully. “Yes, the next morning. I didn’t think anything about the other fires until yesterday when my trees started to get sick again. I figured maybe I didn’t offer enough pineapples. So I listened to the police scanner, and when I heard about the fire last night, I went there to make another offering.”
Irix eased up on the man’s arm, and we exchanged puzzled looks. Pele certainly seemed greedy, but I doubted all this was over a bunch of pineapples. Once again I examined the sick tree. Three of them, after the fungus was eradicated from the entire grove. How could that have happened so quickly?
“Tell you what. I’ll cure this tree in return for the spell book you used.”
Irix let the man go, and he rubbed his shoulder before replying. “You don’t exactly look like a pesticide rep, or one of those fungus scientists. How is a college student going to fix my tree?”
I pointed. “This one. Right here, right now. Do we have a deal?”
His expression turned calculating. “I’ve got three sick trees. Heal all of them and you’ve got a deal.”
I’d healed a diseased tree in New Orleans, but it had taken a terrible toll on me. Even though I was humming with energy, healing three trees would put me at a significant disadvantage if I had a Cleo run-in this afternoon.
“One. If you help us get rid of Pele and her fire servants, then I’ll cure the other two.”
The farmer glared. “How do you expect me to get rid of her? I gave her the pineapples. I don’t know why she’s still here.”
I didn’t know why either. Hopefully once I got the spell and conveyed it to Kristin, she’d have a solution. “We may need you to do the ritual to reverse this. I don’t want you disappearing, so it’s one tree now and the other two after.”
“Reverse it?” Hayworth picked up his sprayer and headed for another tree. “Forget it. I don’t want to reverse the spell. I’ve got no idea what happened and how, but my trees are better than they have been in years. I don’t care if she runs around burning up restaurants; there’s no way I’m reversing that.”
I looked at Irix, and he punched a fist into his palm, nodding toward the farmer. I shook my head, not quite ready for brute force.
“I cure one tree for the spell book. How’s that.”
Hayworth laughed, hosing bark with the sprayer. “Knock yourself out, girl. It’s not like I’m going to turn into a witch or something. You cure a tree, and the book is all yours.”
I approached the tree and placed a hand on it. The fungal infection hit me like a fist, knocking the breath from my lungs. I’d never felt anything so strong. Leaves, twigs, fruit buds – the fungus rarely caused permanent damage, but this particular strain seemed determined to whither this tree to nothing. I could even feel the cankers that were a few weeks away from forming on the trunk. Whatever benefit Hayworth had received from his ritual, the disease had come back ten times stronger.
I opened, letting the blackness pour into me and leaving the tree a clean vessel. My vision swam with the intensity of it, my stomach knotting in pain. Hungry, the disease spread through me, trying to take hold and claim my body for its own. I struggled to fill my lungs then closed my eyes to concentrate as I breathed out and took control.
They were like small ‘c’ shaped worms, immature ones still attached to the hyphae. Conidia, asexual chlamydospores. These fungal spores spread through mitosis and wreaked havoc on plants and fruit. They were also hardy little suckers. I burst each one, tearing them down into simple atomic structures, then further, into a sort of primeval energy. The anthracnose had made me feel filthy and nauseous, made me want to scrub with bleach, inside and out, until I bled. Now, instead of filled with foulness, I was filled with something else – energy I struggled to hold and control. I panicked, instinctively knowing if I wasn’t careful, I could blow up an acre of this guy’s orchard.
“Steady,” Irix murmured against my ear. I felt him as if he were part of me. His being took the weight of the energy, helping me keep it contained.
Feeling like an overripe melon about to burst, I concentrated on channeling the energy, transforming it into healthy cellular structure and nutrients as I pushed it back into the tree.
The last speck of energy left me, and I clung to the tree trunk for support. I didn’t feel like I was on the verge of puking anymore, but a nap sounded really good. A nap right here, right now, under this pineapple tree. Irix’s arms went around me. His lips pressed to the side of my head, and he sent a trickle of energy through my skin. It was like cool water on a hot day, and I smiled at him in gratitude.
“Wow. Just... wow.” Hayworth’s voice sounded like he was a few-hundred yards away — and in a wind tunnel. He touched the tree’s bark. “And you even cured the fruit. That’s amazing.”
It was. Leaves that had been covered with brown, twigs with black spots, misshapen and stunted fruits – they were all the glowing picture of health. It was as if they were part of a horticultural exhibit. Or as if an elf had worked her magic.
I caught my breath and managed to stand more upright. “Now, the spell you worked?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, of course.”
We followed Hayworth through the field and into the house. He went to the shelf with the touristy, brightly illustrated Hawaii books and pulled one down.
“Here.”
It didn’t look like any grimoire I’d ever seen. The ‘spell book’ was paperback, colorful scenes of luau entertainment on the cover. Harnessing the Power of Hawaii, by Celestina Starlion.
What. The. Fuck. “This... this is what you used for the ritual?”
“Yep.” He pointed to a jagged strip of sticky note protruding from the top. “A deal is a deal. The book is all yours.”
Irix and I exchanged baffled glances.
“And you didn’t do anything else?” I asked. “Didn’t pay a sorcerer you found on the internet to help you?”
“Nope. I was ready to abandon the farm and move back to California with my sister. I figured this was worth a shot. I put my whole retirement savings into this place, but it’s worthless with the grove diseased.”
“Well, you’ve got a fresh start now. I’d recommend you destroy the two infected trees. And your tree spacing is a real problem, as are your irrigation sprayers. With that constant dampness on your leaves, you’re going to be susceptible to anthracnose. Thin your grove, change to drip irrigation, and in the fall, rake and burn all fallen leaves and twigs, and this fungus won’t come back.”
He nodded. “I’ll consider it. Now, if you’ll excuse me... .”
Normally the dismissal would have irked me, but I was anxious to get back and see what Kristin could tell me about the ritual this man used – and hopefully how to put Pele and her servants back to rest.
Chapter 22
Irix dropped me off at the resort and left to pick up supplies for our fire-protection ritual tonight. Kai met me in the lobby, and we went to my room to eat room-service lunch and wait for Kristin to return my call. Once we’d tucked into our burgers, I pulled the spell book from my bag and tossed it onto the table between us.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kai said, regarding the book with disdain. “Harnessing the Power of Hawaii?”
“Here’s the ritual.” I turned to the marked page.
She scanned it. “Kalanimainu’u is a lizard goddess. She doesn’t have anything to do with agriculture.”
Kalani-what? No wonder Hayworth couldn’t pronounce her name. I leaned over and looked at the book upside down. “Who should he have called? Haumea? Or Lono?”
“Maybe Lono.” Kai shrugged. “Like I said, Haumea does childbirth. Lono has some minor responsibility for agriculture, but he’s not really a plant deity. He’s the god of peace and winter rains.”
“Rains?” I winced. Aranthcnose was exacerbated by wetness, so calling on a rain god probably would have been just as bad as a volcano goddess. Or a lizard goddess.
“Yeah.
Which is why he’s occasionally attributed as a harvest and fertility god. The winter rains are key to the growing season here.”
“So Celestina Starlion should have probably made the ritual for Lono?”
“He’d be one of the better ones to appeal to for a good harvest. He’s not as well-known as other gods and goddesses, but, in a way, he’s as popular as Pele. Nearly everyone on the island has a Ti plant near the entrance of their house. It’s a kind of blessing, to bring the home peace and good luck.”
The red Cabbage Palm I’d forcibly grown during the fire at the ranch was also called a Ti plant. How poetic that I smothered a destructive fire with a symbol of peace.
Kai smiled nostalgically. “The coming of Lono begins with the rise of the Pleiades. It’s kind of a four-month-long Hawaiian new year that we call the Makahiki season. A Lono figure is created and carried around from district to district. Long ago, war was forbidden during the Makahiki season, and all work was halted while the Lono-Makua was in your district. Now we just party it up – lots of games, sporting events, and feasting. It’s a total blast.”
Drat. Too bad I wasn’t dealing with him instead of Pele. Lono was easy to pronounce. What a shame Hayworth hadn’t invoked him instead of the volcano goddess.
“Well, the farmer substituted Pele for your lizard goddess, and evidently offered her pineapple in return for curing the blight in his orchard.”
Kai gave me an odd look. “I can see Pele taking an offering of fruit. When the volcanoes were active, farmers used to leave offerings at the base to try to persuade her not to burn their fields. It doesn’t make sense that she’d respond to a request to rid trees of a fungus. It’s not within her area of control or expertise.”
So why had she responded? That was another question I’d need to ask Kristin.
“What makes Pele back off in the legends? What has appeased her in the past? Because these pineapples don’t seem to be doing the job.”
“Her temper eventually burns out, so time. Lots of groveling and worshipful adoration. Or we could go find Kamapua’a.”